Societal discrimination against overweight individuals contributes to chronic stress

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Being overweight doesn’t just impact one’s physical health; according to research from a University of Rhode Island professor, societal discrimination against individuals carrying extra pounds creates chronic stress for them.
Maya Vadiveloo, assistant professor of nutrition and food sciences in the College of Health Sciences, and Josiemer Mattei, assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, analyzed weight discrimination data from a long-term national study, “Midlife Development in the United States.”
The researchers focused on respondents who reported that they regularly experienced discrimination due to being overweight; the national study queried whether subjects were treated discourteously, called names or made to feel inferior. Those who experienced weight discrimination during a 10-year period had twice the risk of high allostatic load, which is the cumulative dysfunction of bodily systems from chronic stress. Heart disease, diabetes, inflammation and other medical problems, increasing risk of death, can all be potential outcomes of such chronic stress.
“It is a pretty big effect,” Vadiveloo said in the URI release. “Even if we accounted for health effects attributed to being overweight, these people still experience double the risk of allostatic load because of weight discrimination.”
Published in the August issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the research findings expose problems in our societal approach to weight control, Vadiveloo said. “The main message is to be aware that the way we treat people may have more negative effects than we realize. Our paper highlights the importance of including sensitivity and understanding when working with individuals with obesity and when developing public health campaigns.”
Vadiveloo also said that overweight people who experience discrimination often avoid social connections and miss doctor visits. “There is so much shaming around food and weight. We need to work together as a nation on improving public health and clinical support for individuals with obesity and targeting environmental risk factors,” she said. She suggested that strategies be developed to make healthy foods affordable and safe places be created where people can be active.
She hopes to discuss this in classroom settings and to revisit data from the nearly 1,000 respondents to evaluate if increased social supports or implementing positive coping strategies might reduce the discrimination’s negative health impacts.